


My father a star, my mother the song

by Zimraphel



Series: tolkien ficlets [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (i'm sorry i just... i just want to make it worse somehow), and takes that as an incentive, hmmmm! this COULD be worse, i'm the sort of person who reads the Sil and thinks, in which Elrond witnesses the process of his family turning into a myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28109118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimraphel/pseuds/Zimraphel
Summary: It was a good song, he did agree. It was a beautiful tale, often told. Over the years people grew cautious of telling it near him; not because they feared to be gainsaid, but because they sincerely seemed to believe it would hurt his feelings to speak of such strange fates.Elrond often hears people sing of Eärendil. The story is rarely the same.-----[Elrond has a sad life, yes? What if I told you I could make it worse? In which Earendil is an in-universe fairytale.]
Relationships: Elrond Peredhel & Maglor | Makalaurë, Eärendil/Elwing (Tolkien)
Series: tolkien ficlets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042965
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	My father a star, my mother the song

  
It was not the first time someone told him.  
  
  
The ship grew more beautiful with every passing year. The first time it was still a simple thing, made out of old driftwood and sailcloth. The next time he heard of it someone had added a prow shaped like a swan, and it seemed to have grown near twice its size. Next it silvered, and shone like white flowers strewn on starlit seafoam. By the time Maglor got his hands on it the ship had lifted into the air altogether to sail the very skies, his dead father as immortal as a son of Fëanor could imagine him.  
  
It was a good song, he did agree. It was a beautiful tale, often told. Over the years people grew cautious of telling it near him; not because they feared to be gainsaid, but because they sincerely seemed to believe it would hurt his feelings to speak of such strange fates.  
  
  
For his part, well. It somewhat took the enchantment out of tales to be part of their making. His father the star. When he had known him (which was not for long, for Eärendil's first love, as his father’s before him-- was the Sea), his father had simply been a tall blond man with a sharp chin and green eyes that looked at the world around him with a piercing sort of amusement. He had smelled of the sea, a bit, and tobacco, when he gathered his sons into his arms for a hug; not entirely at home in it, retreating with awkward pats on their small backs. His own father had recently left them for the Sea, taking his golden bride with him like a pass of entry. His mother, child of a forest people on both sides-- had an anxious look on her pale face when he spoke of leaving again to seek the pardon of the Valar, brandishing his vital mission almost like an excuse.  
  
When the missive came, his mother had waited. She plucked nervously at her slender neck, the spot where the jewel would have rested had she worn it that day, and said nothing for a long time. Elros tried to cheer her by showing her his new wooden horse, but her smile had been wry and thin. She had lost everything before she could even talk, and never had they heard her speak the way she might have, had she learned to before loss. She was very young, and very afraid to be alone. Eärendil left her often.  
  
It was not much later when the swords came, and not that much later when they lost her forever. She made Nienor's choice then, and tore wildly from the children's room while they demanded, already lost. Too much had been tainted and taken from her; this time she could refuse, could say no to the world as it was, no to the Doom, no to Fate tangling wantonly with Death and Hope in search for some greater Harmony, merciless in its making, a song wrung out of sorrow more than joy-- a chord suspended now forever; in her own way like Lúthien. No. no. If the world could not be broken apart and set into its right shape, then herself. The answer in the end is the same.  
  
  
They took them, then, and in the end they loved each other, if only because there was no one else left. Maglor sang them lullabies, and when a new star rose in the West they named him Eärendil. Its light flickered like a Silmaril lost beneath dark waves, and if you closed your eyes you could almost imagine someone sailing it through the lonely sky.  
  
  
No one they knew ever came back, and when at last the brothers too went into the dark Elros knew what he would do. No way out of the Story; no way but one.  
  


-

  
But Elrond stays, and when someone sings about the stars, he remembers.


End file.
